Active Member

I have been copying a large number of video tapes to DVD-R, and this is how I have done it.

Equipment

The first item is the VCR, I am using a Sanyo VTC-M40 Beta HiFi deck, good picture and sound with stupid head life. This deck went for 13 years before the heads were replaced. This is connected to the analogue in of my Sony TRV33 video camera, then by Firewire via my sound card into the PC.

I have found that Ulead DVD Movie Fatory capturing is more reliable than Visual Studio, I tend to check every hive minutes and if I get more than one dropped frame rewind and recapture the last few minutes.

Now the video material is on the PC as an AVI or group of AVIs I can trim the ends and adverts and prepare the material for the MPEG encoder.

Because oldish tapes CAN have problem with encoding (however Beta usually holds up brilliantly) I cannot skimp on the bit rate, so I keep to under 2 hours per DVD.

I use TMPGENC XP on 2 pass VBR and best quality settings, I alse run at 320kb/s for sound unless I can fit the MPEG on easilier then I go to 384kb/s. A 45 minute programme takes approximately 8 1/2 hours.

One good feature of TMPGENXP is that new projects can be added on the fly, also by using background idle only, I can capture or burn while not stopping the encoder, very usefull.

I have just completed the first series of Tour of Duty, I recorded on SuperBeta HiFi (NICAM) then edited to BetaHiFi for storage, these tapes play back surprisingly well.

I use captured screen shots for the menu, the DVD itself, and the cases.

So I now have an 11 DVD set of the first series of Tour of Duty with original sound track.